From stories to fun and (hopefully) beyond 

Common Tales was a joint research project of the National Film and Television School London (NFTS), Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), and the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) conducted at the SCEE development studio Cambridge 1999-2000. It focussed on structure of storytelling, use of camera, character development, and user involvement – all implemented in a running demo on the original Playstation console. My position in this project was that of the lead designer.

In this paper I will concentrate on one aspect of fun in digital adventures: the spatial exploration. Why it is fun, how to enhance this aspect via narrative, and how it can be used in other fields.  

Exploring digital worlds is fun because of the user’s immersion in those worlds. Playstation games use audio and visual information through an elaborated interface design to immerse the user in the game. Technically these features are limited. The polygons are restricted to approx. 300 polys for main characters sized 64x64 pixels using 16 colours; in-game sound – if not played directly from the CD – has to be minimised; the Playstation controller – the joypad – is predefined; data amount is restricted by the storage medium. 

Common Tales did not aim at a better technological performance it focussed on various narrative techniques, instead:
•	two different characters and the ability to swap between both heroes 
•	use of narrative camera 
•	puzzle and action elements that demand problem-solving
Main problems during the implementation of these features were – aside from the technological restrictions:
•	engaging the user to two characters at the same time
•	avoiding disorientation through cinematic camera work
•	integrating puzzles and other game-like aspects into the narrative

The design addressed those problems by emphasising the character-driven aspect of Common Tales. We extended “exploration” from a spatial discovery process to a character-discovery process where the user “explores” the characters’ interior and background stories comparable to the world-exploration. The fun relies not solely on interesting environments (we built a sinking freight ship, a mysterious club, an underground sewer system), but also on the virtual heroes who gradually reveal more about their characters. These revelations were implemented in puzzles and action-parts spread throughout the virtual gameworld.

Camera and editing are used to dramatise not only the relation of the characters towards the virtual game world, but also to interpret the relationship between the two main heroes. A countershot from one hero to the other, for example, not only offers a different view of the virtual surrounding but also emphasises the characters’ relationship towards each other.

The results of this project will be tested in a less game-like and more educational environment in other research projects. The “Training Adventure” project at the West Herts College Media Centre aims to use game-like approaches in order to engage children more in the content of the training material. Exploration, here, is used to teach basic skills to children. The same techniques that make computer adventures fun are used to make learning fun.

Michael Nitsche holds a MA in drama (Freie Universitaet Berlin), a MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image (University of Cambridge); he is currently a PhD student at the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS), writing the screenplay for a commercial video game, and works as story consultant in the research project “Training Adventure” (West Herts College); he wants to know more about the rare phenomenon when space and story meet in virtual worlds and one day he wants to learn sailing, too.